The evolution and availability of technology has led to the continuing growth of online sales. Product producers or vendors may make any number of physical products available to customers (also referred to as users or clients) over intermediate networks such as the Internet via web sites, web applications, mobile applications and so on. Physical products may be offered online via websites or applications of the product producers, or may be offered via websites or applications of product distributors such as retailers, resellers, or online merchants that offer products from many different product producers to their customers. Customers may access information regarding the available products through a website or other information service provided by the product distributor. The information regarding the products may generally include that information needed by the customer to identify and purchase a particular product via the product distributor, such as the name and description of the product, the price and availability of the product, and the like.
In a product distribution system, a product distributor typically maintains an inventory of various products at one or more distribution centers, fulfillment centers, cross-docking facilities, materials handling facilities or warehouses (which may collectively be referred to as materials handling facilities). The inventory products are ordered from one or more vendors, received at the materials handling facilities as inbound shipments, and stocked in inventory of the materials handling facilities. In a conventional order fulfillment process, orders for products may be received from customers of the product distributor. Units of the ordered products are picked from various locations in the inventory in the materials handling facilities, processed for shipping, and shipped as outbound shipments to the customers.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.